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contest

We are fortunate to have many freedoms in our lives. With that in mind, this month we are giving you the freedom to write about ANYTHING you want in 740 words or less. Deadline: July 31.

Entries should be mailed toespecbooks@aol.comas a .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachment. Please include your name, story title, and contact information on your manuscript itself. If we cannot identify your entry from the file you will be disqualified. Multiple submissions are permissible, but reprints are not. Winning entry will be published on the eSpec Books blog and the winner will receive a free ebook copy of the eSpec Books title of their choice. Prize can be reserved for a future book if the winner already has the available titles.

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Life is about to seriously transform for those of us working behind scenes here at eSpec Books. With that in mind, this month we want you to tell us your tales of Change in 628 words or less. Deadline: June 30.

Entries should be mailed to especbooks@aol.com as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachment. Please include your name, story title, and contact information on your manuscript itself. If we cannot identify your entry from the file you will be disqualified. Multiple submissions are permissible, but reprints are not. Winning entry will be published on the eSpec Books blog and the winner will receive a free ebook copy of the eSpec Books title of their choice. Prize can be reserved for a future book if the winner already has the available titles.

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On May 2511, in the Firefly universe, the Battle of Serenity Valley begins during the Unification War, to be considered to be the final decisive battle in the war. In commemoration of that fateful day, tell us your tales of Misbehavin’ in 2511 words or less. Deadline: May 31.

Entries should be mailed to especbooks@aol.com as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachment. Please include your name, story title, and contact information on your manuscript itself. If we cannot identify your entry from the file you will be disqualified. Multiple submissions are permissible, but reprints are not. Winning entry will be published on the eSpec Books blog and the winner will receive a free ebook copy of the eSpec Books title of their choice. Prize can be reserved for a future book if the winner already has the available titles.

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Unfortunately, due to insufficient entries, there was no winner of the March Betrayal Flash Fiction Contest.

April 5, 2063 – Humans make first contact with an alien race, the Vulcans, following the success of Zefram Cochrane’s warp drive in the Phoenix launch earlier in the day (Star Trek: First Contact) To commemorate that notable event, this month’s theme is warp drive…but don’t let that limit you, stories can be any genre, any time period, as long as some concept of warp drive is incorporated. You have a maximum of 2063 words. Deadline: April 30.

Entries should be mailed to especbooks@aol.com as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachment. Please include your name, story title, and contact information on your manuscript itself. If we cannot identify your entry from the file you will be disqualified. Multiple submissions are permissible, but reprints are not. Winning entry will be published on the eSpec Books blog and the winner will receive a free ebook copy of the eSpec Books title of their choice. Prize can be reserved for a future book if the winner already has the available titles.

Gerry lay in his bed with the covers pulled over his head listening to the monsters open the attic door, the soft clicking of the knob being turned, the squeaking as it swung, the metallic bump as it closed again. His heart pounded in his chest. The monsters crept down the hallway, soft creaking footfalls echoing on the hardwood, until they stopped at the open door of his bedroom.

Not able to endure the silence, Gerry dared a one-eyed peek between the folds of his blanket. Three monsters waited, but he knew better than to cry out. Daddy had to go to work. He owned a company that did energy research for the government. Mommy had an early meeting. Neither would believe him, and both would be mad, really mad, so he held his breath, watching the monsters, hoping they would walk past his room.

With wrinkled orange skin, the monsters had heads like squished oranges with pointed ears, and big yellow eyeballs with bright red pupils that glistened in the dim glow of his Scooby Doo night-light. The eyes never blinked. They didn’t have eyelids, but they had plenty of teeth, yellow and long and sharp. They wore dirty, greasy rags as clothing, all stitched together into a rectangle of cloth pulled over their heads and tied at their waist with frayed ropes. They didn’t have shoes on their boney feet, but they had nails on the ends of their fingers that made their hands look like claws.

One of them carried a big cardboard box, the box Daddy used to store the Christmas decorations; the box Daddy blamed him for taking. The monsters were thieves. Last week, they stole the motor out of Mommy’s vacuum cleaner and the week before they’d taken the motherboard from Daddy’s computer. Lots of other things disappeared too, like the screen door spring, the cookie cooling racks, and all the silverware. They’d been eating with plastic ever since. Of course, he got in trouble for every missing thing.

The monsters moved past his room, creeping downstairs where he heard them rummaging in the closets and poking through the pantry. The basement door creaked. The monsters were going to Daddy’s workshop where they would move Daddy’s tools around. He always got in trouble when Daddy’s tools were moved, but not as much trouble as when the monsters played tricks. Sometimes they did silly things like putting grease on the door handle, but they also did dangerous things, like stringing a trip rope on the basement stairs. Of course, Daddy would blame Gerry for everything and Gerry would get punished.

At the breakfast table the next morning, Gerry had to warn Daddy, “The monsters went into your workshop last night. You should be careful if you go there.”

Daddy looked up from his iPad. He always checked his email at the breakfast table. Mommy didn’t like that, but Daddy did it anyway.

“Gerry, there are no such things as monsters,” Daddy said with a big sigh. “Monsters are only superstitions. Superstitions are things people use to explain the unexplained.”

Daddy was a scientist. He gave talks all over the world. Everyone said Daddy was very smart, but sometimes Gerry didn’t think so. “But everything can be explained. The monsters did it all.”

“I’ll tell you who is responsible,” Daddy’s voice gave him chills. “There’s a bad little boy in the house whose attention-seeking behavior is causing him to act out.”

Gerry knew better than to argue. Daddy was working himself up. He didn’t want a spanking or to go to bed without dinner. If only Daddy would believe him. He wanted to cry, but that would just get him in more trouble, so he tried to hold the tears back.

Mommy crossed the room and laid a hand on Daddy’s shoulder. “Let’s not start the day off poorly.”

“We have to get a handle on this monster thing.” Daddy rose from the table and stomped away, leaving the rest of his breakfast uneaten.

Mommy sat down next to him, and put a hand on his arm. “Why do you go into Daddy’s workshop?”

Mommy gave him that look. The one that always made him feel guilty even if he wasn’t. “And you have to stop setting your little surprises through the house. The iron balanced above the bathroom door could have really hurt someone.”

“I didn’t put the iron there,” Gerry insisted. “I can’t even reach the top of the bathroom door.”

Mommy sighed and pressed her forehead against his head. She started to cry. “You have to stay out of Daddy’s workroom. You have to stop your pranks. You know how much stress Daddy is under. The government is canceling his contract. His business is going bankrupt. We’re underwater on our mortgage. The bills are piling up.”

Gerry opened his mouth, but Mommy laid a finger over his lips.

“I don’t want to hear about monsters. There’re just superstitions, like your father said.”

As Mommy went back to finishing the dishes, he muttered under his breath, “The monsters are real.”

That night he lay in bed listening to the monsters creep past his room. He didn’t understand about ‘bankrupting’ and ‘mortgages,’ but they sounded real bad and they made Daddy angry all the time and Mommy so sad. He decided enough was enough. If Daddy and Mommy wouldn’t stop the monsters from messing up the workroom, from stealing things, and setting their nasty tricks, then he would have to do it. He got out of bed, put on his bunny rabbit slippers and picked up his little slugger T-ball bat.

The door to Daddy’s workroom in the basement was open so he walked right in. He caught the monsters using Daddy’s tools to work on a device about as tall as him. All the missing stuff was there. A gazillion wires connected Christmas lights to computer chips and circuit boards mounted on two cookie cooling racks, both attached to the shiny trashcan from the upstairs bathroom. Through holes cut in the trashcan, he could see springs connected to knives, the knives working as levers, pushing back and forth, controlling gears that drove spinning spoons and seemed to generate a strange glowing ball of cracking energy.

“You have to leave.” Gerry announced, talking like Daddy would talk.

The monsters looked up from their work, red pupils staring, mouths open in surprise. Their teeth looked so sharp, glistening in the florescent light. He wanted to run upstairs and hide under his covers.

Gerry lifted the bat and pointed the tip at them. “You have to leave!”

One of the monsters put down the wrench it was holding. “That’s what we are trying to do. My name is Hinky. My friends and I came from another world.”

“Just go back there.”

“The internal power supply of our portal generator broke so we’ve been building a perpetual motion engine as an external power supply.”

“Daddy gets mad when you don’t put his tools back. His ‘bankrupt’ is upside down, and his business is ‘mortgage,’ so you can’t stay here anymore.”

The monster took a step toward Gerry. “We want go. Your father’s workshop is very well equipped, but parts have been hard to find.”

“Is that why you stole the vacuum motor, the computer parts, and everything else?”

“We needed them for the perpetual motion engine,” Hinky explained.

“Why put the iron above the bathroom door?” Gerry could understand stealing stuff to go home, but not the mean tricks. “Daddy fell down the stairs on your trip rope. He could have been really hurt.”

The other two monsters giggled, inanely.

Hinky shrugged. “We’re gremlins. We like to play pranks.”

“You should stop that!”

Hinky smiled, looking almost sad. “I think that too. Sometimes I can control myself, but it’s hard for me and impossible for them.”

“I got in lots of trouble for your stealing.”

“I’m sorry,” Hinky said. The other two giggled, again.

“Our stuff is ruined.”

“I know your family is having financial trouble and our presence is adding to your worries. I intend to pay you back.”

Without supervision, the other gremlins had started playing with Daddy’s torch, the one with the big tanks of ‘oxy-something’ and ‘seta-lean.’

“Make them stop!” Gerry shouted. “Daddy says the torch could blow up the whole house.”

Hinky turned. “Back to work!” They looked sullen. “You want to go home, right?” Grudgingly, the gremlins picked up their tools. “They’re not as smart as me.”

Gerry could see that. “How long till you leave?”

“Minutes.”

“Really?”

“Just a few more adjustments and then we’ll connect the perpetual motion engine,” Hinky pointed to the device made of their stuff and then to the flat bar of shiny metal lying on the floor, “to our portal generator and be gone.”

“How will you go?”

“We warp space and time, folding reality over itself, to move from one location to another almost instantly.” Hinky reached in and hooked a spring to one of the knives.

Gerry didn’t understand the explanation.

One of the other gremlins drilled a hole in the shaft of a fork and bolted it onto the base of Mommy’s missing iron, energy cracked between the tines. The other used one of Daddy’s extension cords to connect the two machines.

“Will it work?” Gerry asked.

“Watch,” Hinky pressed the button on the stolen kitchen timer and the air above the portal generator began to shimmer. A dot of colored lights appeared, then the lights became a small ring, and then the ring was big enough for the gremlins to walk through. The two giggling gremlins leapt into the ring and disappeared.

“I’m leaving the perpetual motion engine behind. It uses forms of energy that your world has not yet discovered.” Hinky bent down and picked up the portal generator. “Give the engine to your father as payment for letting us stay here. He can reverse engineer its components and isolate the energies. All your money problems will be solved. Enjoy your life, little human.”

Hinky stepped through the portal and the prismatic spray of lights winked away.

Daddy stormed into the workroom. “I finally caught you!”

Gerry had never seen Daddy so mad, and he tried to explain. “I followed the monsters here! I talked to them. They are gremlins from another world.” That was the wrong thing to say, but he had proof this time. He pointed to the device. “They left you their perpetual motion engine. They said you can reverse ‘something’ it and make lots of money.”

Daddy was in a rage. “I’ve told you never to use my tools without my permission. I can’t believe you built our stuff into some child’s toy.”

“I didn’t,” Gerry insisted.

Daddy picked up the device, raised it high above his head, and then brought it crashing down against the tile floor. The device shattered, springs popping and gears rolling away, sparks danced from its innards, and then with a sad little whine, the levers stopped moving, all the lights winked out, and a small curl of smoke rose from the ruins.

“How many times do I have to tell you,” Daddy raged. “Monsters are just superstitions!”

Entries should be mailed to especbooks@aol.com as a .doc, .docx, or .rtf attachment. Please include your name, story title, and contact information on your manuscript itself. If we cannot identify your entry from the file you will be disqualified. Multiple submissions are permissible, but reprints are not. Winning entry will be published on the eSpec Books blog and the winner will receive a free ebook copy of the eSpec Books title of their choice. Prize can be reserved for a future book if the winner already has the available titles.

Time pilot Tommy Garfield looked at his black Casio G-shock watch. It was 10:15 pm on a Friday night. In just 45 minutes, he’d be taking his first official time-flight into the future. And when he landed, the world would be a much different place.

Tommy was standing out on his back porch, looking up at the night sky. It was a brilliant night, clear and bright with stars. Tommy gazed at the constellations, recognizing many of them from his cell phone’s Google Sky app.

The screen door behind him squeaked open. Mission Commander Bradley Garfield joined his son on the porch.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Commander Garfield said. “So clear. So many stars. On a night like this you can see why our galaxy is called the Milky Way.”

“There’s the Big Dipper,” Tommy said, pointing toward Ursa Major.

“Well, enjoy it while you can. Because when you land in the future, not a single one of those stars is going to be visible. No constellations, no planets…nothing but one giant star blotting out everything else.”

Tommy nodded. “Shining so bright you can’t even stare at it without going blind.”

Commander Garfield smiled. “You’re not scared, are you?”

Tommy made a face. “I’m a time pilot, Dad.”

Garfield laughed. “That’s my boy.”

~*~

The kitchen smelled of fresh baked goodies.

Tommy and his dad sat at the table, eagerly anticipating dessert.

“Brownies!” Tommy exclaimed when he mom placed a tray of chocolatey goodness down in front of him.

“They’re big, so you only get one each,” she said. “And that’s an order.”

After Tommy and his dad devoured their treats, it was time to get serious. They looked at their watches.

“T-minus 7 minutes,” Tommy said. “And counting.”

“Let’s do this,” Commander Garfield said.

Tommy leaped off his chair and kissed his mom. Then he and Garfield raced upstairs, to where the time jet awaited.

~*~

Tommy went through his pre-flight time jump routine, which began with the brushing of his teeth. Afterwards, he went into his room, where the time jet was housed, changed into his time-flight suit and hopped aboard. Looking at his watch, he saw that it was now less than T-minus 1 minute and counting.

Mission Commander Garfield glanced at his own watch. “Ready for takeoff?” he asked.

“…two…one…” A beeping sound from his watch told Tommy that zero hour had arrived. “Ignition!” he said.

“Blast off!” Commander Garfield said. “Prepare for sonic boom! See you in the future!”

Slam! Tommy jumped at the sound of the sonic boom. And then all was quiet. He was alone now, in his time-jet, hurtling through space and time. He closed his eyes, knowing that within minutes he would be entering a state of suspended animation, one that would last until his watch beeped again. And the future became the present.

Soon he felt himself drifting off…

~*~

Tommy’s watch beeped. His eyes popped open. Sunlight streamed through his bedroom window, proof that he was in the future.

He hopped off his time jet, changed into shorts and a t-shirt, washed his face, brushed his teeth, and went downstairs to the mission debriefing facility.

His mother and father were at the table, drinking coffee.

“Hey, Tommy,” his dad said. “How was the flight?”

Tommy grinned. “Mission accomplished.”

“Would you like some toast?” his mother asked.

“Can I have a brownie instead? Please?”

His mom made a face.

“Pretty please?”

Tommy mom smiled. She went to the counter and came back with a brownie on a plate.

“Thanks, Mom!”

“Are you ready for the mission debriefing?” asked Commander Garfield.

Tommy bit into the brownie and held up a forefinger as he chewed. After a big swallow: “Ready!”

“Okay. First question is: How far into the future did you travel?”

Tommy looked at his watch. He’d taken off at 11 pm, and it was now 9 am. He counted in his head. “Ten hours,” he said.

“And what changes have taken place in that time period?”

Tommy thought about that for a moment. “Well, the stars are gone.”

Commander Garfield tilted his head from side to side. “Not gone exactly, but certainly out of sight. For now at least.”

“Until the sun goes down,” Tommy said, and took another bite of his brownie.

“And not only did you travel through time on your flight,” he told Tommy, “you also traveled through space as well. How far do you think you went?”

Tommy shrugged. “I dunno.”

“Take a guess.”

“A million miles?”

Commander Garfield chuckled. “That’s not a bad guess actually. But believe it or not, you traveled much further than that.”

“I did?”

Tommy’s eyes went wide. “Really?”

“Absolutely. Let’s break it down. Now, as you know, the Earth spins around on its own axis. That’s how day turns to night and night to day. How long does it take to complete one full rotation?”

“That’s easy,” Tommy said. “Twenty four hours.” He took another bite of his brownie.

“Correct,” his dad replied. “And since the Earth is so big, it has to be moving pretty darn fast to complete one full rotation in just twenty four hours.”

“How fast?”

“Over 1000 miles per hour.”

“Wow!”

“Exactly. But that’s nothing. Because in addition to rotating, the Earth is also revolving around the sun, which is why we have seasons.”

“It takes one year to go around the sun,” Tommy said.

“Correct again. Do you know how fast we’re moving?”

Tommy chewed thoughtfully on a piece of brownie, then shrugged.

His dad smiled. “67,000 miles per hour.”

“Wow!” Tommy said.

“But that’s nothing either,” Commander Garfield said. “Because the entire solar system is revolving around the center of the Milky Way. Care to guess how fast we’re moving in that direction?”

Tommy thought about that for a moment, but couldn’t come up with an answer.

“514,000 miles per hour,” Commander Garfield said.

Tommy’s eyes went wide. “That’s too fast!”

“But that’s nothing either.”

“There’s more?” Tommy said, and started laughing.

“There sure is,” replied Commander Garfield. “Because the galaxy is moving too. About as fast as the solar system: a half a million miles per hour.”

Tommy’s jaw dropped.

“That’s amazing,” his mom said.

“So every hour,” Commander Garfield said, “we move about a million miles through space. How many miles do we move in ten hours?”

Tommy calculated in his head. “Ten million miles!”

“Crazy, isn’t it?”

“It sure is!”

“But that’s not all,” Commander Garfield said. “There are plenty of other changes taking place as we fly into the future. Did you know that there are four babies born every second?”

Tommy shook his head. “There are?”

“Yep. And if you do the math, it turns out that, during your time flight, there were about 150,000 babies born.”

“That’s a lot of diapers,” Tommy’s mom said.

“That’s a lot of poopy diapers!” Tommy said.

Garfield laughed. “And that’s just people. Think of all the animals born, all the fish, insects…spiders.”

“I hate spiders!” Tommy said.

“Every second of every day,” Garfield went on, “enormous change takes place. And that’s just on Earth. Who knows what’s happening on other planets.”

“Other planets?”

“Sure. Scientists are finding Earth-like planets all over the universe now. And on some of those planets, there might even be intelligent creatures. Creatures like us, with hopes and dreams and laughter and tears…”

“And poopy diapers!” Tommy said.

His mom and dad laughed. “Exactly.”

The three of them fell silent for a few moments, contemplating what they’d just discussed.